Felix Dzerzhinsky

Felix Dzerzhinsky (11 September 1877-20 July 1926) was Director of the Cheka and the State Political Directorate from 20 December 1917 to 20 July 1926, preceding Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. As head of the Cheka, he was the architect of the "Red Terror" during the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War.

Biography
Felix Dzerzhinsky was born on 11 September 1877 in Ivyanets, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Belarus) to a family of Polish aristocrats, but he became a socialist. He was expelled from his school for revolutionary activity, and he was arrested in 1897 for his activism in Lithuania. In 1902, he was exiled to Vilyuysk in Siberia, but he escaped to Berlin, German Empire and lived in exile. In 1904, he moved to Switzerland, and he returned to Russia during the 1905 Russian Revolution, during which he was arrested by the Okhrana. In the years before World War I, he was active in Poland, but he was arrested during the war. He was freed from prison after the 1917 Russian Revolution, and he was elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee in July 1917. On 20 December 1917, he became the chief of the Cheka, and he organized internal security troops to assist the Cheka during the Russian Civil War. During the "Red Terror", the Cheka exterminated "enemies of the revolution" based on their class affiliation or pre-revolutionary roles. He continued to lead the Cheka until his death from a heart attack in Moscow in 1926.